Sms and Email Notification Howtos

The email/sms notification module is used to notify a patient about an upcoming event/appointment. The module consists of two parts, a front end setup and a back end engine. The front end is used to set the message template, access for the Sms/email engines and specify if a certain patient should receive notifications. The back end is set to query the database every hour for upcoming events which are set to send notifications and send them.

Gateways Supported as of 3.2 are:

• tm4b http://www.tm4b.com/sending-sms/ - Outside USA only
• clickatell - http://www.clickatell.com/

Setup Sms/email notification module you need follow these steps for version 4.0:

1. In Administration->Globals->Notifications and adjust the configuration as appropriate for your setup: Email Notification Hours - limits when messages should be sent SMS Notification Hours - limits when messages should be sent SMS Gateway Username - user name used for sms gateway access SMS Gateway Password - access password SMS Gateway API Key - used to interface with clickatell

Notification Email Address - Where will the message come from Email Transport Method - select SMTP, SENDMAIL or built in PHPMAIL SMTP Server Hostname - email outgoing server host/ip SMTP Server Port Number SMTP User for Authentication - outgoing server user SMTP Password for Authentication - outgoing server password

These globals from 3.2 seems to be missing in the admin tool --Tony - www.mi-squared.com 21:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• $GLOBALS['smtp_use_ssl']
• $log_folder_path - this is the path where the back end process will save the logs. You must set this with write access for the user which will run the cron jobs.

(Note: at the moment only to Sms engines are supported Tm4B - http://www.tm4b.com and Clickatell - http://www.clickatell.com)

2. Install backend notification processes you need to add cron_email_notification.php and cron_sms_notification.php in system crontab to run every hour. Do this in the command *LINUX* command line. Note: Need windows instructions written

bash$ crontab -e

then put in the following lines:

* */1 * * * /var/www/html/openemr/modules/sms_email_reminder/cron_sms_notification.php

* */1 * * * /var/www/html/openemr/modules/sms_email_reminder/cron_email_notification.php

(note: make sure you adjust the path as per your configuration)

BELOW (3) is missing for V4.0 --Tony - www.mi-squared.com 21:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

3. Login into openEMR and go in section Administration->Globals->Notifications and there you will find three new sections:

- Sms notification - set provider name and the body of the sms message

- Email notification - set subject, provider name and the body of the email message.

4. In openEMR front end, under patient summary page, in Choices section you will find two options: Allow Email and Allow Sms. This is to be set as required if you want your patient to be notified about an upcoming appointment.